Moving House - Location vs Price

Hi all

I'm Courtney, I have a 7 (turning 8) yr old daughter named Bindi and a 12yr old step son, Lach. I moved this year from one side of Brisbane to the other to live with my fiance and his son, it was only meant to be temporary as they only have a 2 bedroom unit.
As you can imagine it's quite small so we are trying to move before Christmas. The only problem is, because this suburb (where the kids go to school) is so close to the city the 3 bedroom houses in our price range are much smaller than say 15-30 mins out. We actually looked at a cheaper, bigger house that actually seemed quite perfect, however it's a good 16-20 min drive to school without traffic and 30-45 min drive with.

My daughter only just started her new school this year because of the initial move and I couldn't get her to change and start over again. I just can't do that to her.

Sorry for the long post but I'm just wanting some opinions/experience from anyone who is interested. It would be greatly appreciated.

Do we stay around school suburb in a smaller house or suck it up, take on the long commute and get that perfect house?

I'm Courtney, I have a 7 (turning 8) yr old daughter named Bindi and a 12yr old step son, Lach. I moved this year from one side of Brisbane to the other to live with my fiance and his son, it was only meant to be temporary as they only have a 2 bedroom unit.
As you can imagine it's quite small so we are trying to move before Christmas. The only problem is, because this suburb (where the kids go to school) is so close to the city the 3 bedroom houses in our price range are much smaller than say 15-30 mins out. We actually looked at a cheaper, bigger house that actually seemed quite perfect, however it's a good 16-20 min drive to school without traffic and 30-45 min drive with.

My daughter only just started her new school this year because of the initial move and I couldn't get her to change and start over again. I just can't do that to her.

Sorry for the long post but I'm just wanting some opinions/experience from anyone who is interested. It would be greatly appreciated.

Do we stay around school suburb in a smaller house or suck it up, take on the long commute and get that perfect house?

Thanks guys,

Courtney.

Location, as your doing school drop offs you're with traffic, that's a minimum 2 hours a day in the car for you. Think of the petrol cost, wear on car etc not to mention if you wanted ( or are working) that restricts your earning capacity.
You may find its $5-$10 extra per day in fuel ( therefore being closer actually works out better to put that on rent)

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Location. It would take a lot for me to live more than walking distance to school. Plus I want my kids to have their tribe in our local neighbourhood. .

This. Our house is very small but I love the neighbourhood & its walking distance to the school. I grew up walking to and from friends houses as they all lived nearby & went to the same school. I can't wait for my daughter to have that! (She's only 3 now). So that's what I'd do

Such a personal decision. The house is your home and if you are really unhappy with it, location loses its appeal pretty quick. That said, a wonderful big house in a cr@ppy suburb can make you equally unhappy.

My SIL just rented out her beautiful brand new townhouse in the southern suburbs of Melbourne in preference of renting herself a smaller unit in the inner suburbs because the travel really was getting her down. It's definitely something to consider, lifestyle is really important whereas a big house is just nice to have.

We chose the bigger house but we're on the coast so it's only an extra 8 mins and no big deal.

I really am in two minds about this, I just can't decide. I've always lived close to her schools but in tiny units which was more than enough when it was just me and her. I think being a 2 adult, 2 children family in a tiny 2 bedroom unit has clouded my judgement a little. It's like in my heart i know I should be close to school but then...4 bedrooms, with extra storage, and a big yard *sigh*.

Well we are seeing a couple more houses this weekend that are in our school range so hopefully ill fall in love with one.

I'm seriously tempted to just take the plunge with the big house for a year and then move back if we need to/can once the lease is up - if the commute gets too much. I just don't know.

Like I said before location is key for me, but sometimes you need to see grass isn't as green, we were at a daycare only 5km up the road but with traffic, and out of our way- we spent 80km extra and an extra hour in the car each day and that drove us nuts(only went 4 days a week)
So here's another way of looking at it if you want to try the bigger house:

If you get a 6 month lease, and at Xmas then with school hols taking up roughly 6 weeks then it's only 20 weeks that you have to do the drive, then you can move mid term closer if need be.

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